Amnesty International Defiant After Russia Dubs It 'Undesirable Organization'

A decade after Amnesty International warned that "Russia is set to bolster an ongoing draconian crackdown which is squeezing the life out of civil society by adopting the 'undesirable organizations' law," Russian authorities on Monday hit the human rights group with that designation.

Amnesty is a longtime Kremlin critic. Shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Febraury 2022, Russia blocked the London-based group's Russian-language website and shut down its Moscow office.

The Russian Prosecutor General's Office on Monday announced Amnesty's new desigantion, claiming that "they justify crimes committed by Ukrainian neo-Nazis, call for an increase in their funding, and insist on Russia's political and economic isolation," as Russia's state-owned news agency TASS summarized.

"You must be doing something right if the Kremlin bans you."

Responding in a Monday statement, Agnès Callamard, Amnesty's secretary general, said that "this decision is part of the Russian government's broader effort to silence dissent and isolate civil society. In a country where scores of activists and dissidents have been imprisoned, killed, or exiled, where independent media has been smeared, blocked, or forced to self-censor, and where civil society organizations have been outlawed or liquidated, you must be doing something right if the Kremlin bans you."

"The authorities are deeply mistaken if they believe that by labelling our organization 'undesirable' we will stop our work documenting and exposing human rights violations—quite the opposite," she stressed. "We will not give in to the threats and will continue undeterred to work to ensure that people in Russia are able to enjoy their human rights without discrimination. We will keep documenting and speaking worldwide about the war crimes committed in Ukraine by Russia. We will redouble our efforts to expose Russia's egregious human rights violations both at home and abroad."

"We will never stop fighting for the release of prisoners of conscience detained for standing up for human rights or for the repeal of repressive laws that prevent people in Russia from speaking up against injustice," Callamard continued. "We will continue to work relentlessly to ensure that all those who are responsible for committing grave human rights violations, whether in Russia, Ukraine, or elsewhere, face justice. Put simply, no authoritarian assault will silence our fight for justice. Amnesty will never give up or back down in its fight for upholding human rights in Russia and beyond."

According to The Associated Press:

Russia’s list of "undesirable organizations" currently covers 223 entities, including prominent independent news outlets and rights groups. Among those are prominent news organizations like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty or Russian independent outlet Meduza, think tanks like Chatham House, anti-corruption group Transparency International, and Open Russia, an opposition group founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, an exiled tycoon who became an opposition figure.

After Open Russia was declared undesirable in 2021 and disbanded to protect its members, its leader, Andrei Pivovarov, was arrested and convicted on charges of carrying out activities of an undesirable organization. He was sentenced to four years in prison and released in 2024 in the largest prisoner exchange with the West since Soviet times.

The move against Amnesty notably comes as U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing for a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine. After speaking with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday, Trump said that the two countries "will immediately start negotiations."

Trump, in his post on Truth Social, highlighted opportunities for the U.S. to trade with both Russia and Ukraine, as well as the newly elected American pope's offer to host the negotiations at the Vatican. The president also said that he called key European leaders following the call with Putin.

Like Putin, Trump has generated concern by cracking down on dissent. As Common Dreams reported Monday, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University led a letter that the coalition wrote "to sound a collective, unified alarm about the Trump administration's multifront assault on First Amendment freedoms, and to call on leaders of civic and other major institutions—including universities, media organizations, law firms, and businesses—to stand more resolutely in defense of these freedoms that are integral to our democracy."